But mother and daughter are as storm-ready as they can be. The house is fortified with storm shutters. They have a portable TV, batteries, water and canned goods. Snyder has been following Cape Coral Mayor Marni Sawicki's storm updates on Facebook.

Graves said she decided not to go to a shelter because of her pets, and she didn't leave the city because she wasn't sure about traffic.

"I just didn't want to be on the highway with traffic backed up, and I also didn't know the gas situation," she said.

Snyder said other some of her family members — her brother who lives in Cape Coral and her sister, a Fort Myers resident, — decided to evacuate.

She said her father and stepmother are still at their Fort Myers' home.

'We will go up in the attic'

Snyder's mother picked her up Saturday morning. They spent Saturday watching news reports about the storm and a little bit of car racing to get their minds off the flooding and destruction that Irma may bring to Florida's west coast.

"What's scaring me is the storm surge, you know," Snyder said. "I don't know what we are going to do. I guess we will have to play it by ear.

"There's the attic. If worse comes to worse, we will go up in the attic. I don't know where else to go."

Snyder said one of her mother's neighbors lives in a two-story house. She said she went by the house to see if anyone was home, hoping her and her mother might be able to stay there, but no one was at the house. It appears they evacuated, she said.

When Hurricane Charley ripped through Southwest Florida in 2004, Snyder said she stayed with a friend. The storm ripped part of the roof off her home, rain gushed into the house, destroying everything inside of it, she said.

Snyder said it's hard to believe she might experience a storm that could be worse than Charley.

"Oh, gosh," she said. "I don't know. If I get damage to my house. I think I am moving. I have had enough."

Looking for shelter

Some Cape Coral residents ended up having to leave the city to find shelter.